One of the mothers, Karen, shared her story: «I was desperate, with no support from anyone to have my daughter. I didn’t know what to do,» she said, because during her pregnancy she didn´t have support from her partner, who did not want children. She was 26 at the time.

However, when she approached what she thought was her only option—an abortion clinic in Madrid—she met several volunteers from the organization “Más Futuro” («More Future»). “They came up to me and told me that abortion was not the solution and that, if I had no support, they would help me.”

Seeing this as another possible way out of her painful situation, she gave them her phone number, and a few days later, they reached out to her. «I thank God for putting those wonderful people in my path who helped me, as my life took a turn for the better,» she shared. What had seemed like a misfortune turned into Karen’s greatest blessing.

“I decided to continue with my pregnancy and have my little girl, who is now two years old. She is my greatest joy, my hope, my life, and the reason I keep going. This Saturday, I am going to baptize her, and I am very excited to take this important step with my daughter,” she confirmed.

For Karen, the solution is clearly not abortion: “My advice to mothers considering abortion who don’t have support from their partners or family is not to do it; a child is a blessing sent by God. No matter how difficult life gets, you must face the situation and move forward. Seek help rather than resorting to abortion.»

Along with Karen, 16 other families celebrated their children’s baptisms. As Bishop Ginés García Beltrán, who led the ceremony, stated, “Today, we are celebrating the feast of life.”

The Bishop of Getafe emphasized, “These children are not here by chance, none of them. I don’t know the circumstances that led to your pregnancies, but what I do know is that God has always loved your children, he had them in mind, they are not just another number; they are someone important.”

Marta Velarde, president of the Más Futuro Association, stated that the journey to the Baptism celebration “has been very challenging, as each mother faces unique difficulties, but saving babies from abortion brings us deep happiness. Despite the especially difficult time, we are rescuing many children.”

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But… who is Griffin?

AJ Griffin Jr. is the son of another former basketball player, Adrian Darnell Griffin, who played in the NBA from 1996 to 2008 and is currently an NBA coach.

From a young age, AJ was involved in the sport thanks to his father’s example. As he puts it, «basketball was my reason for living.» As a teenager, he played for the Archbishop Stepinac team in New York. Later, in college, he was recruited by the Duke University Blue Devils. His excellent performance there caught the attention of the NBA, leading him to be drafted by the Atlanta Hawks for the 2022/23 season. At 19, Griffin entered the best basketball league as a promising rookie.

What motivated him to make this 180-degree turn?

Griffin explained the reasons for this huge change on social media, posting a video that has already garnered over 100,000 views in a week. He shared that it all began in 2020 when he decided to give his life to God, and from that point on, his values began to shift. He moved from putting basketball at the center of his life to placing God at the center of everything.

 

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This transformation led him to recognize how God’s presence in his life has changed him, and he realized how much he loves sharing the message of the Gospel. He now wants to share this with everyone who hasn’t experienced it, because he believes this message can change the lives of many others, just as it did for him.

 And why not continue playing basketball and preach Christ from there?

This is a question many ask the former player, to which he responds: «You can have all the riches in the world, but the only thing that truly matters is your relationship with Jesus… He’s the only one who can completely satisfy you. He’s the only one who can give you a purpose, and I feel that the Lord was asking me to leave basketball to serve Him more.»

What’s next for the former player?

He says he will continue sharing the Gospel through his social media platforms and is very excited about this new stage of his life. He mentions that while he doesn’t regret where the Lord has led him in recent years, this new chapter feels like it’s going to be very exciting.

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Haskell himself was a victim of this addiction as he was exposed to pornography from the age of 15. He realized that this addiction was destroying his life, as he relates, “Months after I started, I began to research and understand the consequences of pornography use. I learned how it harms people and how it was changing my brain.” That led him to seek help from an online group.

In one of his first encounters, he was struck by the testimony of a man who looked physically very masculine who after a minute of exposing his situation “began sobbing loudly, his bitter tears running down his face to his thick brown beard. He had been trying to quit pornography for much longer than I had and had not succeeded.”

He realized that this was the line he was walking and that if he didn’t change his route he would end up in the same situation, unable to love a wife and give her the undivided love he had always dreamed of.

 This experience inspired him to get out of this situation and take the necessary steps to achieve it. He asked his brother for help to have accountability with him about this, he talked to his parents about the problem which, although it caused him embarrassment at the time, had saved his life, which was worth it.

He says he finds motivation in the thought that “when I look into my wife’s eyes at the altar, I will know that the promise I made to her is true” because he has given her his heart completely.

He has since made several changes in his life and has started this initiative at his alma mater, the Notre Dame campus, to help young people in this same situation. He says his goal is to create a world where every man can love his wife as Christ loves His Church. 

He affirms that “asking for help is not weakness, it is heroic. It’s being brave enough to risk your pride to save the victims of the industry and the people you love the most.”

For more information visit: https://www.ethosnational.org/.

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She began to realize that something was missing, but she never thought it could be God or religion since she had never had any contact with these realities in her upbringing.

She says, “I thought religion was for weak-minded people, who are not very bright and choose the easy way out. But I felt very empty, like missing something…”. She admits that she began to experience a great lack of meaning and thought about committing suicide, although she never attempted it.

One of the things that helped her at that time was to open up to her friends and talk about it, which made her think that maybe God could be working in her. On the other hand, she had a boyfriend who had been baptized as a Catholic, but was a non-practicing person, however, as she began this search for God, they decided to go to Mass together one Sunday.

She says that her experience was very different from what she expected because it was the first time she participated in a mass and her feeling was as if she was returning home, although curiously she had never been there, but she adds: “I remember when in Russia we played in the snow in freezing weather. As soon as we would come home, we would get that warm, cozy feeling of family and warm food. That to me is the feeling of coming home, and that’s exactly what I felt when I walked into that church for the first time.”

Since then, she and her boyfriend have not stopped attending Mass every Sunday and having formation with a priest, and this has helped her understand the faith more and prepare to be baptized and enter the Catholic Church.

Shortly before her baptism she reflected, “I used to think that faith was limiting and oppressive, but now I realize that it is extremely liberating… knowing that everything is forgiven makes me feel absolutely free, not because I think I can do anything now, but because I know that no matter what I did wrong, I don’t have to carry that burden with me,” she details. “I feel both at peace and very excited.”

She also mentions this regarding the war in Ukraine: “I strongly condemn all this violence that is happening”. She claims that faith has sustained her in these difficult times. “There are people who ask me how I can believe in God when we see all these atrocities of war. But I believe that God gave us free will. Some use it to serve their pride, but we can use it to work for peace.”

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The “rooms of life” have been approved, which would be part of the hospital managed by pro-life groups who are allowed to be inside the abortion hospitals to assist and inform pregnant women.

Article 1 of Law 194/78 states that “the State guarantees the right to conscious and responsible procreation, recognizes the social value of motherhood and protects human life from its origin (…) The State, the regions and local authorities, within the scope of their functions and competencies, promote and develop social and health services, as well as other initiatives necessary to prevent that abortion be used for the purpose of limiting births.”

The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, stated that what this amendment to the constitution seeks is that, following her principle, women who are about to have an abortion can be provided with help to make a freer and more informed decision, assisting them in a concrete way to help them make the best decision.

The amendment has been taken as an attack by pro-abortion groups, who point out that it is yet another “interference of pro-life associations in the secular offices responsible for supporting women in their decisions”.

Moreover, the Meloni government had already allowed doctors who, for reasons of conscience, believe that it is not appropriate to perform abortion to deny it to those who request it, who make up 63.4% of doctors in Italy, 43% of doctors in Emilia Romagna and 85% in Sicily. They disagree with the practice that ends a human life.

The rooms of life seek to help by various means such as allowing the mother to listen to the baby’s heartbeat and above all to support and listen to pregnant women who need it in the context of a more general plan of help during and after pregnancy to women who live that moment with difficulties and who might consider the choice of interrupting the pregnancy, or who feel obliged to resort to it for lack of resources.

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This young woman from Trumbull, Connecticut, first learned about Jesus and Catholicism around Easter last year when her professor and a friend were talking about Holy Week. She asked her friend Alyssa Mancini what that was all about and her friend started talking to her about her faith.

Not long after, Alyssa invited her to Mass for the first time. They went to a Latin mass, which Kyra knew a little about from her high school classes where she had taken a course. However, she mentioned that “I didn’t know what they were saying…. It just blew me away. I felt so much power. I felt so much truth. I really enjoyed that Mass. And I thought, ‘I want to learn as much as I can about this, and even more, because I have no 5% idea what was said at this Mass, but it was amazing.»

From then on she sought to go to Mass every day. But something was complicating her situation and she needed to find a residence near campus to maintain the frequency. That’s when her friend told her to ask Mary. At first Kyra didn’t even know who Mary was or why she should help her, but with her friend’s explanation she understood a little better and began to ask Our Lady for this grace.

A couple of weeks after asking, her prayers were answered: she got an apartment on the university campus, and for free. «I couldn’t have done this if I had tried to do it alone. I was so sure of that, that Mary had interceded for me and helped me do something I never thought I could accomplish or do.»

Kyra says, “From that moment on, I never looked back. Honestly, it has been very helpful and comforting to know that I am no longer alone and to know that I have found the truth.» Looking back on her journey and how she has been so persistent in this decision she mentions: “I was very curious and wanted to know him (Jesus) and to know her (Mary) better”.

When she talked it over with her parents she learned that her mother had been raised Catholic, but had never mentioned it in the family environment, so she was proud of this step she had taken. On the other hand, her dad had been raised Jewish, so it was a little difficult for him to accept the decision she was making, as he felt she was leaving aside the traditions he had raised her with. Attending the Easter Vigil at which Kyra was baptized, her dad was surprised to hear the readings from the “Torah,” which for Catholics constitutes the Old Testament, and realized that she was not completely abandoning the traditions in which she had been raised.  At the end he said to her, “If you are happy, I am happy.”

«To me, one of the most amazing things about Catholicism is, ‘This is the fulfillment of everything we’ve been told to sit around waiting for.’ What are we waiting for? Jesus is a perfect fulfillment of the Torah and the Old Testament. So it’s literally like waving your hands and saying, ‘Hello! We don’t have to wait any longer.»

And what’s next in this young woman’s life? “It’s still a journey, and I’m actually very excited about that,” she concluded.»I can tell the difference. I’ve even grown as an individual in the year that I discovered my faith and grew in my faith. It has had such a huge positive impact on my life and has given me strength.  If my experience can help someone else have a similar experience, then the story is worth telling.»

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This has surprised even the neighbors of the newly acquired compound, who were unaware of the activities that took place in the former facilities of the aerospace company Boeing, which until recently was a leadership center of that organization and now belongs to the Augustinian Institute.

Tim Gray, director of the Augustine Institute, has pointed out that the location of this new complex is of crucial importance, since there are more than 20 million Catholics living in St. Louis and they can easily travel to the site. In addition, he mentioned that this site is a crossroads and he aspires for it to become “a crossroads for the renewal of the Catholic Church in the United States.”

Regarding the financing of the project, the spokesperson informed that the funds come from the income generated by the graduate school’s tuition, sales of its curriculum, books and materials, and subscriptions to its Catholic content streaming service, FORMED, which is present in more than half of the parishes in the United States and has close to 1.7 million subscribers.

Given the great growth that this Institute has experienced in recent years, it was necessary to expand and establish this new location for the online platforms and as a campus for the theology students at the Institute.

The move to this new location is expected to begin classes in the fall of 2024, and enrollment is anticipated to increase by 200% to 300% over the next few years.

The campus will also serve for conferences and retreats, so an estimated 10,000 people will visit the site each year.

Gray has stressed that the goal is to support evangelization in parishes and Catholic schools, providing them with tools to form children, youth and adults, fulfilling the work of mercy of teaching the unlearned. Gray concluded, “We want to help them better serve their people so they can renew their parishes and their schools. It’s a positive, close, but independent relationship.»

In an April 23 statement, St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski expressed confidence that “the Augustinian Institute will transform this property into the main center for the New Evangelization in the United States.”

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In the archipelago, for example, there is the island of North Sentinel where there is a tribe of hunter-gatherers who arrived some 60,000 years ago, but without any contact with civilization. Some missionaries like Jhon Chau have been killed by that tribe.

The future Father Kumar has been evangelizing in the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. To get there, the faithful are used to walking miles on foot through forests full of snakes and other wildlife just to get to Sunday Mass. Kumar and the current parish priest also have to cross these terrains to get to the parish.

Kumar accepts that it is difficult to get to the parish and that it involves considerable effort but he is encouraged by the fact that people also attend and that the church is always full. He says that “the faithful are thirsty for the Eucharist and prayer”.

The deacon travels through villages that are 20 to 30 km apart, so he rides a motorcycle provided by Aid to the Church in Need. In these communities “there is no electricity or internet, there is a shortage of water, but we manage to get by,” he says.

Kumar, on the eve of his ordination, says he began to consider his vocation when his father got cancer and he prayed to God, “and that began to change my life,” he says. His father recovered and he felt more and more attracted to be a missionary.

“In my diocese priests are few, but seeing the priest working for the people, I saw their (people’s) thirst for Christ and their need for the Mass and other sacraments. Thanks to Aid to the Church in Need and all its benefactors for the support they have given me on my path to the priesthood,” he concluded.

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Scorsese says that the lives of these saints have accompanied him throughout his life: «thinking about their words and actions, imagining the worlds they inhabited, the decisions they faced, the examples they set».

The series will include saints like Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene and Maximilian Kolbe, all important to the director.

Among other renowned titles that have catapulted him to be recognized as one of the best film directors are The Departed (for which he won the Oscar for best director), The Wall Street Wolf, Goodfellas, Silence (which he presented exclusively to the Pope in a private audience), among many other titles.

The director has just signed a contract with Fox Nation to present the series in two seasons, each of four episodes, one in November of this year and another at Easter 2025.

In this regard Jason Klarman, one of FOX Nation’s executives, said «Having the best storyteller to tell some of the greatest stories of all time is exactly the kind of exclusive content that is driving FOX Nation’s success.»

Martin Scorsese also plans to make a new Jesus movie based on a book written by a Japanese author named Shūsaku Endō, who converted young to Christianity and died in 1996. He is considered one of the best modern Japanese writers. In his work he sought to integrate the Christian faith with Japanese culture.

More and more attention is being drawn to this approach.

It will be interesting to see how they put these two works on the big screen. It is hoped, therefore, that these new projects will be of great scope and depth in culture and society.

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Junko says she attended a Catholic school and university, but never took much interest in the faith. When she was about to marry her current husband he revealed to her that he was Catholic, and she mentions that perhaps if she had not had a previous experience with Catholicism, she would likely have reacted more hostilely to this statement. However, her previous contact with Catholicism allowed her to not have such a repulsive reaction to her husband’s faith.

Some time later, when they had their son, Junko’s husband expressed his desire to have him baptized as a Catholic, to which she was at first a bit hesitant to do so. She decided to consult with her husband’s sister who told her that she had always felt God’s presence in her life because she had been baptized as a child, and this motivated Junko to accept the baptism of her son.

The baptism took place and Junko remembers her husband telling her that he was very happy because even if something happened to them, their son would be in good hands because God would be with him.

Junko mentions that her life went smoothly until October 2022 when her husband told her that he had just been diagnosed with cancer. At that time she became so worried about the future of her husband and family that she went into shock. In contrast, her husband was very composed, which impressed her. She asked him how he could be so calm, to which he replied, «I’m fine. God is always here».

From that moment on she discovered something she had never seen in the person of her husband, a faith that she had interpreted simply as something that made her husband a «calm and ordinary» person, but at that moment she realized that his faith was so great even to be fearless, even though the future was uncertain. This began to make her rethink her position on faith.

Upon realizing this situation and together with the desire to walk alongside her husband in this difficulty, she decided that she wanted to be baptized. She discussed this with her husband who was glad that he had become ill because it brought her to a deepening of the faith, he had always believed in.

Thus, Junko began her journey to the Church and among other things she is grateful to the parish community are the accompaniment and the availability to be with her and accompany her in this difficult time. Since they had moved house, she had no friends with whom she could talk or feel accompanied, but in the church community there is always someone to listen to her. Junko was baptized at the Easter Vigil at the Sekimac church.

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